Ah, spring. The birds are singing, the sun is shining brightly, and people everywhere are airing out their homes in the yearly tradition of spring cleaning. Shouldn’t your hardworking computer get the same treatment?
If you want your PC to continue pumping out spreadsheets and email with its typical unflagging fervor, it’s time to roll up your sleeves, grab your mouse, and prepare to clear out some digital cobwebs. Let’s get started!
If your house is anything like mine, clutter tends to accumulate over time. Before long, it becomes a chore to find anything amid the chaos. Your computer is no different. Without regular upkeep, your hard disk becomes clogged with items such as temporary internet files, files awaiting deletion in the Recycle Bin, and Windows temporary files, to name a few.
You can use the Disk Cleanup tool to delete unwanted files, and your computer will thank you.
To use Disk Cleanup, follow these simple steps:
- Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.
- If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean. Make sure to choose the C: drive. Other drives, such as recovery drives and shared drives would not be viable for this type of cleanup.
- When Disk Cleanup has calculated how much space you can free up, a Disk Cleanup for dialog box will appear. You will see a list of Files to delete, and by default a certain number of check boxes will already be checked off.
- Go through and click on the check boxes for that you don’t want to delete (so that the checkmark disappears) and then click Ok. Using Disk Cleanup, you generally will not run the risk of deleting any useful files, but to be absolutely certain of this, make sure you only have the following boxes checked:disk cleanup tool
- When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes.
After a few minutes, the process completes and Disk Cleanup dialog box closes, leaving your computer cleaner, performing better, and potentially increasing your IT speed.